Abortion and death penalty come before climate change for church, Vatican official says

But Turkson, who heads the pontifical council for justice and peace, said global challenges elevated by Francis – such as climate change and justice – would still take second place in importance to individual life-and-death issues such as abortion and the death penalty. “I would not put them on the same level. I would not associate them at all. Climate change is something that has happened to the world around us,” he told a small group of reporters in a telephone interview. “It’s something essentially that we can control, we can rein in, whose impacts and consequences we can master.”

The Vatican official who wrote the first draft of the papal encyclical has said abortion and the death penalty still hold primacy over climate change as issues for the Catholic church, despite the pope’s ringing call for action on the environment.

As the pope moved on to New York for the second leg of his US tour, Cardinal Peter Turkson said personal issues of life and death still came first for the church, notwithstanding the Catholic leader’s efforts to get world leaders to fight climate change and poverty.

Personal issues such as abortion remained in a category of their own. “Abortion, death penalty are, however, our religion,” he said. “Because God created humans in his image, the only thing he ever created in his way, the only blueprint.”